Retirement and teaching work: farewells or new beginnings?

Abstract

This paper’s purpose is to understand how retired Psychology professors that chose to keep on working at the university are now experiencing this new moment of their careers. From an ergological perspective and concepts of activity ergonomics, dialogical conversations about work were held with four retired Psychology professors at a public federal university. Observations about a number of work meetings were also made. We determined that the professors continue to work because they have regarded retirement as a tool for construction of another way to make use of themselves at work, with more autonomy to decide which tasks they would develop and how to accomplish them. It is also important to mention that these professors continued teaching not only for their need of social acknowledgement or to maintain their living standards, but for the opportunity of developing their professional activity under a specific situation where common good values were shared, providing a profitable use of them by themselves and by the others.